Rick Erickson, harpsichord and organ
Richard (Rick) Erickson began his tenure as Music Director for the Boulder Bach Festival in July 2011.
In addition to his duties with the Boulder Bach Festival, Mr. Erickson serves as Cantor and Organist at Holy Trinity Lutheran Church in New York City, where he also directs the renowned Bach Vespers series. In this post, he presents over 20 cantatas and other major Bach works each season with the all-professional Bach Choir and Bach Players on period instruments. Since his appointment in 1992, he has led the performance of over 100 cantatas and the major works of Bach. During the past ten seasons, Erickson has more than doubled the number of performance offerings of Bach Vespers series. The New York Times in 2008 called Holy Trinity “New York’s temple to Bach.” New York Newsday refers to Holy Trinity as “the place for bacchanalians!”
In addition to Holy Trinity, Erickson has served as musician at Incarnate Word Lutheran Church in Rochester, NY, where he founded the “Second Sundays Plus” series. He has also served as interim musician at Marble Collegiate Church in NYC. He has performed as organist, conductor, clinician, and at conventions of the American Guild of Organists and the Association of Lutheran Church Musicians. He served the AGO as Regional Councilor, is a founding member of ALCM, and is an Associate in Ministry in the ELCA.
He taught improvisation and church music at the Eastman School of Music for four years, where he continues to teach in the summer Organ Improv Festival. In 1994 he founded BachWorks, NYC. He has conducted “Bach events” in Houston, Seattle, Tulsa, and Minneapolis. Equally renowned as an organist, Erickson has been featured in concerts throughout the USA and Europe. He has performed two complete cycles of Bach’s organ works in New York City and in Rochester, NY and is currently in the third cycle.
A native of Superior, Wisconsin, Erickson began organ study at the age of fourteen following in his mother’s and grandmother’s footsteps. His father’s favorite comment about music is: “If you have Bach, you have enough.” He holds a Bachelor Degree in Music and German from the University of Wisconsin, Superior, where he has been honored as “Distinguished Alumnus” and cited as “one of the 100 distinguished graduates” in the school’s 100th anniversary year.
Erickson earned a Master Degree in Organ Performance and Literature and is recipient of a Performer’s Certificate from the Eastman School of Music. He studied organ with David Craighead, Lucile Hammill Webb, and Russell Saunders, improvisation with Gerre Hancock, accompanying with Robert Spillman, and conducting with Robert DeCormier and David Effron.
He served as co-editor for the choral edition of Bach for All Seasons, and has recorded for Augsburg Fortress, Naxos and JAV, among others. He is featured in a new Buxtehude recording scheduled for release by Deux-Elles in 2011. His choral arrangements are published by Augsburg Fortress and Kjos Publishers, and he appeared in the acclaimed film 13 Conversations About One Thing. In 2006 he arranged and directed music for the play The Orphan Singer (off-Broadway play/opera about Vivaldi), produced by Making Books Sing and published by Boosey and Hawkes.
